The angel I’m fighting leans back to avoid my slice. I swipe my feet under his, and he goes down, landing hard. He’s probably not used to fighting on his feet.
My opponent rolls away from me, blindly finding a new place to fight.
Raffe turns to me.
It’s the first time I’ve seen his face look less than perfect. He’s squinting in pain and blinking rapidly.
He came to help me.
Through all the screaming noise and blinding lights, he came.
I dig into my pocket and pull out a handful of industrial-strength earplugs. He looks at the orange plugs in my hand, then back at me. I grab one and push it into his ear.
He understands and puts one into his other ear. I know they don’t help a lot, but they must help some, because his face relaxes a little. He gets the attention of the two Watchers beside us who also pluck earplugs out of my hand and put them in their ears.
I give Raffe a quick hug. I don’t care who sees me at this point. Raffe might, though.
As if to prove it, he glances up at the sky. The rest of his Watchers and hellions are hovering above the fight where the noise is less. And beyond that is the cloud of winged spectators. I’m sure it’s just my imagination, but I sense the arctic winds of disapproval coming down at us from the spectators above.
He came down to help us rather than hunt us even though the entire angel host was watching.
Raffe makes a twirling gesture to his two Watchers. They nod.
The two Watchers jump into the air and make the same twirling gesture to the rest of the Watchers hovering above.
Raffe’s entire crew dives down through the painful noise and blinding lights and lands on the bridge.
When angel meets Watcher, they’re like two feral cats meeting each other in an alley. They raise their feathers, making their wings look spiky and larger than before.
At first, our freedom fighters assume that there are just more enemies to fight and withdraw into a more defensive position against them. But when they see the Watchers attacking Uriel’s angels, they waste a second, watching the scene unfold with slack jaws.
I raise my arms and whoop even though no one can hear me. I can’t help it. With Raffe’s group, we now have a fair shot of fending off Uriel’s attack.
Everyone else must feel the same way, because all around me, people shout and raise their arms in a war cry.
The lights turn off again, throwing the world into utter darkness.
I stand still, not having anywhere to hide while the angels can see and we can’t. Someone brushes by me in the dark. I want to hunker down and cover my head, but I just have to trust Raffe and the Watchers to keep me alive.
When the lights turn back on, Raffe is fighting beside me. He and his two winged opponents flinch as the light hits them.
There are more people alive than I’d hoped. The Watchers did the fighting for us while we were blind. Now they’re all blinded, and it’s our turn.
I rub Raffe’s arm to let him know it’s me and take the sword out of his hand. During the disorienting few seconds while the angels are covering their eyes, trying to adjust back to the light, we humans attack.
I cut and slice the angels closest to us while other people attack single angels in groups large enough to overwhelm them. Raffe’s Watchers fought while we were helpless. Now we fight while they’re debilitated.
We’re working together as a team, Raffe’s group and my people. We bridge their weaknesses and they bridge ours. We’re a weird, ragged, mismatched group compared with the perfectly formed, powerful, beautiful angels, but we’re still beating them back.
Adrenaline is pumping through my blood, and I feel like I can fight ten of Uriel’s angels. Screaming my head off in a war cry, I run for the next squinting angel who is shielding his eyes.
Raffe falls to the ground wrestling blindly with two angels who are working together to hold him down. I stab my blade through one’s back, and Raffe kicks off the other.
I feel like we have a real shot at beating them back with all of us working together.
But the glorious elation ends too soon.
The cloud of spectator angels begins coming down on us, hard and fast.
64
It’s not surprising that the spectator angels are jumping into the fight now that Raffe and his Watchers are defending humans against other angels.
As the spectators begin diving, the fog around them begins churning. The angels falter in their flight and look around.
A cloud of locusts bursts out from the fog surrounding the angels.
I search the chaos for a glimpse of my sister but don’t see her in the swarm of wings and stingers.
A bloody body drops from the center of the locust cloud.
There’s a heart-stopping moment when I can’t see any details. I want to shut my eyes in case it’s Paige. Instead, my eyes are glued to the body as it falls.
I can’t see anything until the body gets close enough. When it does, there’s just enough time for me to see who it is.
Iridescent wings flutter in the wind. A scorpion tail. A white streak in flowing hair.
Then he smashes onto the asphalt.
I can breathe again.
Paige. Where is she?
In the sky, the swarm of locusts closes in on the angels. Paige sits regally in the arms of a locust followed by the rest of the swarm.
We all stare. Paige is covered in blood. I hope it’s mostly White Streak’s. She drips blood from her mouth. She’s chewing something.
I don’t want to think about that. I’m careful not to look too closely at White Streak, who lies broken on the bridge.
The old leader is dead.
I can’t get my mind around
it. My baby sister – queen of the locusts.
Paige lashes out with her voice and hand with a fury that reminds me of Mom. I can’t hear what she’s yelling, but she sweeps her arms, and the cloud of locusts follows.
They crash with the spectator angels in a tumbling mash of perfection and monstrosity. Blood starts raining down on us as stingers and swords clash.
My sister is keeping the spectator angels from coming down on us. Doc and Obi were right about her.
A surge of pride and fear swirls inside me. My baby sister is a savior.
Then the lights turn off again, and we’re plunged into darkness.
I feel a hand grabbing Pooky Bear out of my grasp, and I know Raffe has the sword again. I crouch down low to stay out of the way and cover my head. I just have to trust him to keep me alive while I’m blind and deaf.
Behind my closed eyes, I see the impression of my sister riding a locust in battle.
65
When the lights turn back on again, I see someone trying to climb up the broken edge of the bridge from below. He has his mouth open in a frantic scream. Whatever it is he’s trying to get away from is worse than what’s on top of the bridge.
I run over to help him up. His hand is sweaty, and he’s trembling. I can’t hear a word he says, so I lie on my stomach at the crumbling edge and look down. I can see the bottom of the hideaway net strung below the bridge.
The net is broken. People cling to it in clumps, as if trying to get away from something. They’re all staring wide-eyed at the turbulent water below.
The sea churns and explodes as a multiheaded sixer beast shoots up in a cascade of water. Its six living heads all have their mouths open like a misshapen fish jumping for bugs.
One of its heads sees me and snaps its jaws.
The apocalyptic monster grabs and bites several people with its six live heads. It then disappears back into the bay with the bleeding, squirming victims.
The dark water splashes and swirls as the last victim’s hand disappears into the vortex.